The USCG is accused of executing an extortion campaign that would make the Mafioso proud. It is currently trying to threaten nearly 50,000 U.S. citizens into settlements.

Record setting lawsuit against downloaders of The Hurt Locker has reached nearly 25,000 people, alone

A bizarre
case just became more bizarre. Lawyers for Voltage Pictures, makers of
the Oscar-winning war movie The Hurt Locker, have announced [Scribd]
in legal filings that they are dramatically expanding their record setting legal crusade against
filesharers.

I. A Reverse Class Action?

The Hurt Locker lawsuit is perhaps the first of its kind. It
represents a reverse class action, with a company acting as a plaintiff and
suing a large class of defendants.

Originally this class was set at 5,000. But as promised, lawyers for
Voltage Pictures have expanded the class, adding close to 20,000 newly accused
defendants, for a total of 24,583 defendants.

The majority of defendants are on Comcast. A total of 10,532 Comcast
users currently stand accused. Comcast has refused to cooperate with the
plaintiffs in targeting its customers according to filed legal documents.

By contrast Verizon, who had the second most defendants at 5,239, agreed to
hand over the names and information of 100 customers a month. Third place
Charter, with 2,699 defendants, agreed to hand over 150 customers a month.

Time Warner rounds off the list with 1,750 defendants.

If Comcast can hold off the legal assault, it may safeguard approximately two
fifths of the customers targeted in the case. The plaintiffs do not
currently have users' true identities -- just the offending IP addresses.
So as long as Comcast refuses to cooperate its customers will be safe.

Even in the case of Verizon and Charter it will take years at the promised rate
to successfully obtain information on all the accused.

II. USCG -- Nearly 50,000 Sued

The legal brains behind this audacious lawsuit is the U.S. Copyright Group
(USCG). The men leading the USCG are a trio of lawyers Thomas Dunlap, Daniel Grubb, and J.W. Weaver whose
main office is located in Washington, D.C.

The USCG have borrow a page from the Mafioso playbook, creating a mass
"pay or else" scheme of legal threats, which many consider pure
extortion.

In many ways this scheme is the entertainment industry's anointed successor to
the notorious Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) campaign of legal
threats. However the USCG suits are a bit different, as they actually
have been filed in court, versus the RIAA threats that were negotiated out of
court. Amazingly, federal courts appear to be cooperating with the USCG's
scheme to juice millions out of the unsuspecting public.

Last month the USCG announced [Scribd]
a suit against 23,322 defendants for downloading the movie The Hurt
Locker. That brings the total to 47,905 -- close to the eye-catching
50k mark.

The USCG hopes to gains settlements of $2,000 from the defendants. If it
can get everyone to settle, it could in theory make $95.81M USD. Of
course it probably will get nowhere close to that, but even if it got a mere
fourth of defendants to settle it would receive almost $24.0M USD -- a handsome
payout compared to the $17M USD The Hurt Locker made at the
box office at the $103M USD box office scoop from The Expendables.

If the selection of Judge is any indication, the defendants could be in very
bad trouble. The happy news for the USCG is that the judge presiding over
the case -- Judge Beryl Howell -- was a former RIAA lobbyist who spent years
decrying the evils of piracy.

Judge Howell will deliver her ruling on whether the case by Voltage Pictures
with the new details can proceed and under what stipulations.

Judge Howell (Washington, D.C.) is free to draw her own conclusions as she's in
a separate jurisdiction in which the legal system still seems to think an IP
(internet protocol) address identifies a single person.

The association between IP and identity remains a thorny legal issue in the
United States. In court, the U.S. largely upheld IP logs as evidence in
trials such as the cases against Jammie Thomas-Rassert and Joel Tenenbaum.

And recently, the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and its sister agencies
have been conducting raids on suspected child pornography viewers based solely
on IP logs -- with minimal background research. In many cases these raids
were later discovered to be case of mistaken identity -- but that discovery
came too late for brutalized homeowners.

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quote: Comcast has refused to cooperate with the plaintiffs in targeting its customers according to filed legal documents. By contrast Verizon, who had the second most defendants at 5,239, agreed to hand over the names and information of 100 customers a month. Third place Charter, with 2,699 defendants, agreed to hand over 150 customers a month.

I read somewhere that it costs one of the big ISP's (cable company, can't remember which one) about $120 per lookup. This was a couple years ago, and maybe they've automated some stuff since then, but at that rate, this would cost Comast about $1.2mil. Even if it's just half or a quarter of that, that's a big enough chunk of change that cost to the ISP is a legitimate concern here.

Go ahead and make a spreadsheet for 23 million users with dozens of entries per user and see how well excel handles it.

Its amazing how people with no idea what they are talking about act like they are smarter than the professionals working for multibillion dollar corporations just because they took keyboarding in high school.

quote: Databases are not stored on spreadsheets... Go ahead and make a spreadsheet for 23 million users with dozens of entries per user and see how well excel handles it. Its amazing how people with no idea what they are talking about act like they are smarter than the professionals working for multibillion dollar corporations just because they took keyboarding in high school.

What's amazing to me is the lack of reading comprehension. Ultimately you receive a fail on your remark of someone else failing.

He said give him the ip addresses w/ the date/times on a spreadsheet and he could have the results list in 30 minutes from the database. He never said the information was stored in an Excel file. And he is correct.

Even if it's a flat log file or something, it probably wouldn't be that hard to parse it and look for the IP addresses in question.Anyway, as I mentioned below, the technical aspects of the request probably aren't where most of the cost is incurred.

I get the feeling you may have never worked for a large corporation... The reason this sounds easy to you is because you're just looking at the easy part.

I would imagine the procedures for requesting, accessing, and releasing the information are where most of the time/money costs come from. In fact, I'd be surprised if each data lookup request moved through fewer than three different groups. Some of that is just due to straight up bureaucratic bloat, but some of it also comes from checks and balances in place to preserve the safety of customer information.

also, there is the public relations risk that if enough customer's names are turned over, that Comcast could be seen as the bad guy in customer backlash.While the case may technically have some legal merit, if enough people are falsely accused of piracy then it's likely some publicity will be given to the IP address not being a good personal identifier. I'm in the ISP business and I'd estimate that at least half of all subscribers use a router of some type to feed more than one computer. This is only going to increase as laptops increase over desktops and computers become more personal devices.

Customer backlash against a functional monopoly in several markets isn't likely to be a huge concern.

Destroying the idea that IP addresses identify an individual also wouldn't seem to be a problem for the ISP, it would fall to law enforcement or the ambulance-chasing lawyers like these to find another identification method.

IPv6 will change things as well, but the torrent information they're trying to use for these suits don't have that.

IPv6 won't change as much as you think. The fact is that even then, they will only be able to get the MODEM address of the person doing the 'illegal' sharing.

They could STILL be using a wireless network that someone hacked into, a modem cloner (yes, these things do exist), etc. and it's not the person who owns the wireless network doing the illegal downloading.

They should be happy someone is interested enough in their movie to download it out of the other thousands of movies available.

I forget who but some band member was asked what they thought about people downloading their music without buying it. He responded something to the effect of "if they pick our music out of the millions of other music and artists out there. I am honored."

...and how many of these 25,000 would have *bought* a copy of The Hurt Locker if it wasn't on some torrent site?

-> 0

Every time any organization says anything about some dollar figure being "lost" to piracy, every single person in that organization should get punched in the face. In ALL cases, when any positive dollar amount is quoted as being "lost" to piracy, the number 0 is much closer to reality than the value quoted.

Piracy != lost sales. Piracy = getting something for free that you otherwise have no interest in buying.

No, the Green Zone was speculative conspiracy theory riddled bullshit. Poorly written, poorly acted, and ultimately trite and predictable. And in case there was any doubt about the intelligence of someone who would choose to view this, you're constantly beaten over the head with the overarching message of the film. Just, you know, in case you somehow didn't "get it" the first 100 times.

I happen to watch movies to be entertained. Apparently some choose to watch movies to have their political anti-American views upheld. How sad.

quote: I was about to echo the same sentiment. Can't believe that piece of trash won awards.

The interesting part too is that the film's writer -- PlayBoy's Marc Boal -- lied and said the account was a work of fiction, when in fact he ripped off the story from true accounts told to him by a soldier (according to accusations).

So in other words Boal essentially stole the idea for the movie and now is suing the public for stealing his work.

I thought it was pretty good. Pretty accurate depiction I thought of what soldiers over there face. Not being able to trust anyone, sometimes on a team with a guy who acts like a bad ass and potentially gets people killed.

quote: Pretty accurate depiction I thought of what soldiers over there face

Really? I thought the theme to promote was fake heroism and self-pity where the invaders are the victims. I see it as a celebration of the lone lunatic in which killing is completely incidental. The main character is a psychopath who gets his high off violence in someone else's country and the suffering of it's people is put second to that of our soldiers.

quote: Piracy = getting something for free that you otherwise have no interest in buying.

Also, we get ~8 hrs to sleep, ~8hrs to work, ~3hrs for meals, sometime for bathing, chores, BM, etc. This leaves us like <4 hours in a day. Factor in the weekends and that is an average of 5.5hrs/day to do whatever we want. Do they think it is a given that we just donate nearly 50% of said average day's free time? And if you agree with me that time is money, the value of those free hours is higher than your working wage.

So before they get into the nickles and dimes they should first be thankful that we spend our time on the stuff whether we pay for it or not. What is it they say about a tree falling in a forest where no one is around?

I'm not promoting piracy, but something needs to be said of the time that is put into watching. I mean in some way these people did actually pay for it (just not as much as the studios are asking).

But I guess they are more concerned about the fact that these same people are providing free distribution of their movies to people who would otherwise never pay to see their movies anyway.

i won't as i will be boycotting them.and someone should do something against the USCG.an old trick we did in the 70's was daily supergluing of locks on banks in protest.harmless and a good anarchist prank

I think they really need to change the charges to petty theft for these things as that's all that's happening here. You could walk in to Best Buy and steal a DVD off the shelf and not much would happen. You certainly wouldn't have to pay some lawyers $2000 or more like in the RIAA cases. If you're taking their work, copying it and selling it, then there should be more serious consequences. Yet nobody cares about the guy on the streets of some ghetto city peddling bootleg copies of movies.

The sad part of it all, majority of the claims are against the parents of the accused since they can't be charged. You know what happens since most the parents live paycheck to paycheck? The just file for bankruptcy further hurting the parents for getting any assistance from banks down the road.

Make no mistake, these mafia types are going after soccer moms that have nothing to do with it.

I DO advocate piracy. No matter what the morons at the movie studios say, it does not hurt sales, people have been doing it since movies was in existence and everyone lives on.

Just because the internet has made it easier, movie studios instead of adapting to the trend, go at it with a gun to extort people.

Its like cable/phone companies offering faster and faster internet, then imposing data caps just because they don't want to upgrade networks for demand. Its insane.

Totally agree...I still go watch movies in the theaters, I pay for cable, its not like my money isn't going to these clowns anyways. Most people already subscribe to cable / internet anyways, so quite of bit of that money goes to those RIAA/MIAA. Looks at these movies like Avatar, still made craploads of money, despite pirating.

I stream tv shows and download movies occasionally. Most of them have been on cable TV, yet I am never home at that time to watch it. So, because my schedule doesn't match with the cable companies, I cannot watch the programming I want to.

The format in which this media is distributed is not aligning with today's digital society especially with the emergence of Wi-fi, 3G, High-Spd Internet, Cellphone/Tablets and etc.

Furthermore, the price at which this media is being pushed to the consumer is still based off pricing structure from 30 years ago of Cassette and VHS formats. Yes, DVD/CDs prices have finally dropped, after they gone obsolete.

Costs on media should have DROPPED enormously over the past 20 years, but it has not. Look at a new blue ray movie, which costs anywhere from $30-50. Manufacturing costs on the packing maybe $3-6 each, content we'll say $5-8 each, disc less than $1 each. Webhosting costs are far less, and considering many of these media outlets own a lot of online media distribution channels, you would think that prices have dropped....

This is the problem with corporations running the world....Only the almighty $ means anything.

quote: Costs on media should have DROPPED enormously over the past 20 years, but it has not. Look at a new blue ray movie, which costs anywhere from $30-50 . Manufacturing costs on the packing maybe $3-6 each, content we'll say $5-8 each, disc less than $1 each. Webhosting costs are far less, and considering many of these media outlets own a lot of online media distribution channels, you would think that prices have dropped....

Actually the movie studios think they are giving you a discount at these prices since if you and a friend watch that DVD 5 times in your lifetime then that would have equated to 10 movie tickets at $7-15 each which would have cost you $70-150. So you are getting a huge bargain at those prices, if you look at it from the MPAA's point of view lol.

quote: if you and a friend watch that DVD 5 times in your lifetime then that would have equated to 10 movie tickets at $7-15

Nobody's forcing you to buy it. And don't forget travel costs for 10 trips to the theater.

If I made the same calculation with my first CD burner (appx $300) divided by the number of discs made I'd be rather upset, which is why I didn't buy a DVD burner until last year for $25.

DVD movies were also this high when they started, just wait for market saturation again and they'll get cheap quicker than DVD did. I'll just buy a good Oppo player and disregard BD for as long as reason requires.

People keep using the word "theft". But nobody has ever been charged with theft from file sharing. It's classed as Intellectual Property infringement.

We need IP laws modernized and redefined, desperately. And we need TORT reform so bad it's not even funny. I don't think classifying file sharing as "petty theft" is the way to go, in fact, it could make things even worst.

Fixed it for you, but it seems politicians can't conceptualize IP better than anyone else, and probably worse.

quote: And we need TORT reform so bad it's not even funny

Excessive verdicts are routinely reduced by judges, it's not as "out of control" as politicians and TV make it out to be. And some politicians won't be happy until all tort reform is nothing more than a corporate annoyance, you don't want that to happen either.

Corporations have made civil lawsuits worse by their own actions. They take the faster and presumably cheaper way out by settling frivolous charges with a check. This simply leads to more of them since they pay. It's the GM Syndrome, short term gains with long term costs.

If they fought such suits and then sued for costs the number of frivolous lawsuits would drop dramatically. By paying nuisance claims they allow those lawyers and "victims" to operate in a "there's nothing to lose" mode, and the fact it continues proves that.

The fun thing is, stealing the DVD is literally forcing someone to lose money. If a DVD is uploaded to a torrent site, odds are someone actually paid for it. Really, its sort of like having 10 million friends come over to watch the movie you just got... though, think of the cost of the popcorn... eep

Quite true. Personally, I have downloaded a lot of DVD's off torrent sites.... all of them which I was already able to get the movie in question because I have a little thing called? A cable TV subscription!

In which case, ALL those movies would have been on TV sooner or later.... not buying what I already paid for ONCE again!

Add into this that some channels are 1080p now..... and the "You are getting a higher quality!" doesn't fly anymore.

And while I don't advocate piracy, this is absurd. It's a bit better than the unfortunate woman who was charged millions of dollars, but the punishment still DOES NOT FIT THE CRIME. I'm fine with folks protecting their intellectual property, but this is like others have mentioned - stealing a CD. Selling bootlegged copies for profit is literally making a financial increase on the development and work of others. That should be a far greater offense than downloading the content via the internet without paying for it, and the punishment should be similar.

The only judges on the benches are old farts who have trouble using notepad. I'd dare them to pick on a technologically competent person. First off, an IP address is more like a PO BOX than a home address. Secondly, the IP can be spoofed on the tracker - hell, I'd live download in the courthouse the offending torrent and plug in the judge's home IP, riaa.com, and maybe the courthouse's too. Maybe that'll finally get their attention.

ACS: Law tried this in the UK. Same setup, also 25,000 pirates/victims. They sent letters out threatening to sue unless people paid up.

It backfired badly - the court cases were likely to go against them, and they never intended to go to court. They relied on people paying up based on the letters. Some didn't and decided to fight, so they had to go to court - and the judge found all this stuff out.

This kind of sums it up:

Through a statement read to court on 24 January 2011, Crossley [of ACS: Law] announced that he was withdrawing from pursuing claims against alleged illegal file sharers, citing criminal attacks and bomb threats as reasons. In response, Judge Colin Birss said "I am not happy. I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny".

To me, it's hard to see why any American would advocate piracy. The industries of Hollywood, Nashville, Seattle and the Silicon Valley are reliant on intellectual property. The argument that it's OK to use their products free of charge hurts the American economy.